Irene Vallejo

While the subtitle of this work is not totally misleading, this really isn't a history of the invention of books. I think it's equal parts memoir and a consideration of how readers were created, with all the implications that flow from that. I actually enjoyed it quite a bit. However, whereas on completion I had seriously considered giving it five stars, the more I think about the work the slighter it feels. Still, I would read more essays from this lady.

We are the only animals who imagine fables, who scatter darkness with stories, who learn to live with chaos thanks to the tales we tell, who stoke the ember of fires with the air of their words, who travel great distances to carry their chronicles to strangers. And when we share the same stories, we are no longer strangers anymore.

from Papyrus by Irene Vallejo
What a delightful book! The book is as gorgeous as the writing, so I looked forward to holding it and reading it every night. It took show more me on a journey back in time, to the first letters and first writing, to soft clay tablets that could be smoothed over, to the papyrus scrolls that ancient Egypt exported across the known world, to parchment and codices. What was in those fragile books, how they were preserved or destroyed, sheltered in libraries or lost in war or in conflagrations spurred by anger. It traces Western heritage from the Greeks, whose culture was adopted by the Romans (who were better at war than philosophy.)

This is the serious book lover’s dream of a book, wide ranging across time and topics, but always coming back to the attachment we have to books, their power to reach across time and space. Librarians are liberal heroes, in the past and today; our own local librarian watches people scan the shelves, bringing their complaints, pressuring the offerings to conform to their truth. In the ancient world, booksellers were punished for the books they sold. Books are dangerous things! They hold ideas and ideals that challenge the status quo.

Vallejo begins with a journey, thousands of years ago, when brave men crossed the world and risked everything to bring rare manuscripts back to Ptolemy for his library in Alexandrea. And she ends with the loss of literacy after the fall of Rome, and their revival with the printing press. Books no longer had to be hand copied by slaves, distributed to the few.

How my mind soared while reading, filled with insight–there is so much packed into this volume! It’s a book to return to, for the beautiful writing, and the knowledge, the sheer pleasure of reading it.

I received a free book from A. A. Knopf. My review is fair and unbiased. show less

"Somos seres entretejidos de relatos, bordados con hilos de voces, de historia, de filosofía y de ciencia, de leyes y leyendas. Por eso, la lectura seguirá cuidándonos si cuidamos de ella. No puede desaparecer lo que nos salva. Los libros nos recuerdan, serenos y siempre dispuestos a desplegarse ante nuestros ojos, que la salud de las palabras enraíza en las editoriales, en las librerías, en los círculos de lecturas compartidas, en las bibliotecas, en las escuelas. Es allí donde show more imaginamos el futuro que nos une". show less

Este es un libro sobre la historia de los libros. Un recorrido por la vida de ese fascinante artefacto que inventamos para que las palabras pudieran viajar en el espacio y en el tiempo. La historia de su fabricación, de todos los tipos que hemos ensayado a lo largo de casi treinta siglos: libros de humo, de piedra, de arcilla, de juncos, de seda, de piel, de árboles y, los últimos llegados, de plástico y luz.

Es, además, un libro de viajes. Una ruta con escalas en los campos de batalla show more de Alejandro y en la Villa de los Papiros bajo la erupción del Vesubio, en los palacios de Cleopatra y en el escenario del crimen de Hipatia, en las primeras librerías conocidas y en los talleres de copia manuscrita, en las hogueras donde ardieron códices prohibidos, en el gulag, en la biblioteca de Sarajevo y en el laberinto subterráneo de Oxford en el año 2000. Un hilo que une a los clásicos con el vertiginoso mundo contemporáneo, conectándolos con debates actuales: Aristófanes y los procesos judiciales contra humoristas, Safo y la voz literaria de las mujeres, Tito Livio y el fenómeno fan, Séneca y la posverdad...

Pero, sobre todo, esta es una fabulosa aventura colectiva protagonizada por miles de personas que, a lo largo del tiempo, han hecho posibles y han protegido los libros: narradoras orales, escribas, iluminadores, traductores, vendedores ambulantes, maestras, sabios, espías, rebeldes, monjas, esclavos, aventureras... Lectores en paisajes de montaña y junto al mar que ruge, en las capitales donde la energía se concentra y en los enclaves más apartados donde el saber se refugia en tiempos de caos. Gente común cuyos nombres en muchos casos no registra la historia, esos salvadores de libros que son los auténticos protagonistas de este ensayo. show less